HAITI UPDATE
It's taken long enough, but it seems that the Shrub Administration might finally have to answer some of the lingering questions about Haiti thanks to the Congressional Black Caucus and Senate Dems. Let's hope so. Full story, HERE
Saturday, March 13, 2004
Friday, March 12, 2004
The Proofs Are Here!
In a personal note, I've decided to print up 500 copies of my novel Portal (Click to read 1st three chapters.) to sell at music festivals this summer. I just received the proofs for the book and it looks as nice as I hoped it would. Once they arrive and I get them printed I'm planning on selling them on the website as well. If all goes as well as I hope I'll do the same thing for my other 2 books at the end of the summer.
In other book notes, my latest novel, titled Ialtaboath, is going very well and should be finished (barring unforeseen development problems) by the end of May/ Beginning of June.
In a personal note, I've decided to print up 500 copies of my novel Portal (Click to read 1st three chapters.) to sell at music festivals this summer. I just received the proofs for the book and it looks as nice as I hoped it would. Once they arrive and I get them printed I'm planning on selling them on the website as well. If all goes as well as I hope I'll do the same thing for my other 2 books at the end of the summer.
In other book notes, my latest novel, titled Ialtaboath, is going very well and should be finished (barring unforeseen development problems) by the end of May/ Beginning of June.
The Gateway Definition and Does Scalia Have Any Scruples?
If you've been near a TV in the last couple of days you've probably heard the new lastest argument being put forward by those who are afraid that someone, somewhere is having sex of a nature they don't like. They are saying, "OHH NOO. It's not that we're closed minded bigots intent on re-introducing Jim Crowe Laws into America. It's not gay marriage at all. It's just if we open the door to re-defining marriage in a new way we'll slide into arnarchy. Why, if we define Marriage as being able to include homosexual relationships it will open the door to people marrying their children, their pets, and (as I heard one guy say) even a rock!"
Can you believe it? That argument is in the running for the most stupid argument in the history of public debate. My buddy John put it best. These yutzes are trying to say that Gay marriage is like pot. It's not so bad in itself, but it can lead to really bad things. Gay Marriage is a gateway term. Like pot, if we legalize it the next thing you know people will be trying to marry a needle of heroin. Or something. Dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb.
Same topic, different angle. He's at it again.
"As the Supreme Court was weighing a landmark gay rights case last year, Justice Antonin Scalia gave a keynote dinner speech in Philadelphia for an advocacy group waging a legal battle against gay rights."
"A month after the dinner, he sharply dissented from the high court's decision overturning the Texas law."
Full Story Here
The Texas law in question made having homosexual sex a crime. What does he have to do to get a hearing about this stuff, stand up in the middle of testimony and pee on opposing council?
If you've been near a TV in the last couple of days you've probably heard the new lastest argument being put forward by those who are afraid that someone, somewhere is having sex of a nature they don't like. They are saying, "OHH NOO. It's not that we're closed minded bigots intent on re-introducing Jim Crowe Laws into America. It's not gay marriage at all. It's just if we open the door to re-defining marriage in a new way we'll slide into arnarchy. Why, if we define Marriage as being able to include homosexual relationships it will open the door to people marrying their children, their pets, and (as I heard one guy say) even a rock!"
Can you believe it? That argument is in the running for the most stupid argument in the history of public debate. My buddy John put it best. These yutzes are trying to say that Gay marriage is like pot. It's not so bad in itself, but it can lead to really bad things. Gay Marriage is a gateway term. Like pot, if we legalize it the next thing you know people will be trying to marry a needle of heroin. Or something. Dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb.
Same topic, different angle. He's at it again.
"As the Supreme Court was weighing a landmark gay rights case last year, Justice Antonin Scalia gave a keynote dinner speech in Philadelphia for an advocacy group waging a legal battle against gay rights."
"A month after the dinner, he sharply dissented from the high court's decision overturning the Texas law."
Full Story Here
The Texas law in question made having homosexual sex a crime. What does he have to do to get a hearing about this stuff, stand up in the middle of testimony and pee on opposing council?
Thursday, March 11, 2004
John Kerry's "Offhand" Remarks
In a positive development for news junkies John Kerry has found himself a Carl Rove. (Carl Rove being the evil mastermind behind the spin machine of the Shrub administration. He's a political genius from Hell. Like Lee Atwater before him.)
From the Boston Herald:
"Kerry, speaking to a supporter in Chicago who urged him to take on Bush, said, ``We're going to keep pounding. These guys are the most crooked, you know, lying group I've ever seen. It's scary.''
The comments, picked up on a microphone Kerry was wearing, marked the toughest talk yet in an escalating early war of words between the presumptive Democratic nominee and Bush."
Kerry claims he didn't know he was on camera and was speaking "off the record." He just "happened" to be wearing a mic? Don't want to get a bad audio feed of the comment you weren't planning to make. Yeah right. He knew he was on video and audio. That's why he said it.
Kerry's not a great candidate. He's a big money politician with an atrocious voting record. But this was a nice trick, which means he's hired some decent group of "lying cheating bastards" to run against Shrub's lying cheating bastards. It's a tough act to top, Bushy boy has one of the best propaganda machines in history behind him. This "off the record" trick was smooth. I hope we see more on both sides. Politics, if it's not going to be for the good of anyone except a few rich elites, should at least be entertaining.
In a positive development for news junkies John Kerry has found himself a Carl Rove. (Carl Rove being the evil mastermind behind the spin machine of the Shrub administration. He's a political genius from Hell. Like Lee Atwater before him.)
From the Boston Herald:
"Kerry, speaking to a supporter in Chicago who urged him to take on Bush, said, ``We're going to keep pounding. These guys are the most crooked, you know, lying group I've ever seen. It's scary.''
The comments, picked up on a microphone Kerry was wearing, marked the toughest talk yet in an escalating early war of words between the presumptive Democratic nominee and Bush."
Kerry claims he didn't know he was on camera and was speaking "off the record." He just "happened" to be wearing a mic? Don't want to get a bad audio feed of the comment you weren't planning to make. Yeah right. He knew he was on video and audio. That's why he said it.
Kerry's not a great candidate. He's a big money politician with an atrocious voting record. But this was a nice trick, which means he's hired some decent group of "lying cheating bastards" to run against Shrub's lying cheating bastards. It's a tough act to top, Bushy boy has one of the best propaganda machines in history behind him. This "off the record" trick was smooth. I hope we see more on both sides. Politics, if it's not going to be for the good of anyone except a few rich elites, should at least be entertaining.
Wednesday, March 10, 2004
Evil Vs. Free Will
I've been thinking a lot about the problem of free will vs. the problem of evil. Mainly because it's become the center theme of the novel I'm working on right now. The argument, for those not familiar, has been bandied about for centuries. The non-believer in God says, "If God is omniscient (a universally accepted charectaristic of the Judeo/Christian/Islamic God commonly referred to as Jehovah) then I cannot do evil because everything I do is predetermined and pre-known by God." But, "God can't do evil because he is, by definition, good and loving." So how is there evil?
"Free will." Is the answer.
"But how do we have free will if God knows everything? Can you honestly tell me I have a choice if there is anyone anywhere who can guarantee with 100% certainty what I'm going to do? That doesn't sound very free to me."
And so we spin and spin in circles.
Still, there are more people in America who believe in this version of God than don't.
I don't believe in it, but the Gnostic conception of the same God is much more interesting, and I think satisfying. In this version, God isn't actually God. He's a flawed, angry creature who is the manifestation of the smallest bit of the real God. That's why we die. That's why there's sin. We've been worshiping the wrong God all this time. Jehovah created the world of matter to try to recreate his hazy memories of the true realm of God. He's insane and basically evil. He's jealous becuase humans were given the "breath of life" (a soul) by the parent as consolation for being created out of matter and having to go through the trauma of living and dying.
What are the charectaristics of the Gnostic God, a figure referred to in their writings as "The Parent?" It's all about balance and the harmony of opposites. It favors neither opposite but chooses the middle path, all things at rest, calm like a pond. In other words, it's Buddhist.
There have been exactly ZERO wars started by Buddhists. What if the Western conception of God had been Buddhist instead of what it is. Everything would be different. I imagine it would be better but there's no real way to say one way or the other. (The grass is always greener after all, and Buddhist priests are hardly beyond the kind of petty corruption found everywhere in everything.) Of course, the fact that things are the way they are might not be the result of our choices. We could easily be on invisible strings that we can no more fight than the urge to pee. I don't think so, but he'd want me to think that wouldn't he?
I think I'll be done with the novel by June 2004 so I'll probably have more to say on this subject once the story works itself out.
I've been thinking a lot about the problem of free will vs. the problem of evil. Mainly because it's become the center theme of the novel I'm working on right now. The argument, for those not familiar, has been bandied about for centuries. The non-believer in God says, "If God is omniscient (a universally accepted charectaristic of the Judeo/Christian/Islamic God commonly referred to as Jehovah) then I cannot do evil because everything I do is predetermined and pre-known by God." But, "God can't do evil because he is, by definition, good and loving." So how is there evil?
"Free will." Is the answer.
"But how do we have free will if God knows everything? Can you honestly tell me I have a choice if there is anyone anywhere who can guarantee with 100% certainty what I'm going to do? That doesn't sound very free to me."
And so we spin and spin in circles.
Still, there are more people in America who believe in this version of God than don't.
I don't believe in it, but the Gnostic conception of the same God is much more interesting, and I think satisfying. In this version, God isn't actually God. He's a flawed, angry creature who is the manifestation of the smallest bit of the real God. That's why we die. That's why there's sin. We've been worshiping the wrong God all this time. Jehovah created the world of matter to try to recreate his hazy memories of the true realm of God. He's insane and basically evil. He's jealous becuase humans were given the "breath of life" (a soul) by the parent as consolation for being created out of matter and having to go through the trauma of living and dying.
What are the charectaristics of the Gnostic God, a figure referred to in their writings as "The Parent?" It's all about balance and the harmony of opposites. It favors neither opposite but chooses the middle path, all things at rest, calm like a pond. In other words, it's Buddhist.
There have been exactly ZERO wars started by Buddhists. What if the Western conception of God had been Buddhist instead of what it is. Everything would be different. I imagine it would be better but there's no real way to say one way or the other. (The grass is always greener after all, and Buddhist priests are hardly beyond the kind of petty corruption found everywhere in everything.) Of course, the fact that things are the way they are might not be the result of our choices. We could easily be on invisible strings that we can no more fight than the urge to pee. I don't think so, but he'd want me to think that wouldn't he?
I think I'll be done with the novel by June 2004 so I'll probably have more to say on this subject once the story works itself out.
Sunday, March 07, 2004
Censorship
MoveOn.Org has had a rough year. First they had their commercial censored from the Superbowl even though they were willing to pony up the ridiculous amont of cash necessary to run it. Instead we got tits and horse farts and old people erection pills.
Now the Republican National Committee wants to ban MoveOn's newest set of ads as a violation of campaign finance laws. The RNC who steals Democratic files illegally? Yeah, that RNC. The article is here.
Everyday its something. Yeesh.
MoveOn.Org has had a rough year. First they had their commercial censored from the Superbowl even though they were willing to pony up the ridiculous amont of cash necessary to run it. Instead we got tits and horse farts and old people erection pills.
Now the Republican National Committee wants to ban MoveOn's newest set of ads as a violation of campaign finance laws. The RNC who steals Democratic files illegally? Yeah, that RNC. The article is here.
Everyday its something. Yeesh.
Anthony Scalia is a Rat
I know this story isn't exactly brand new but I just came across it and it too falls under the "Why the hell isn't this on the front page of every newspaper in America" column.
Dick Cheney has refused for a couple of years now to so much as release a list of people he met with in creating the W administration's energy policy. It is a well known secret that most of the people his Lord Voldemort talked to were multinational energy corporations who many groups have accused of literally writing the energy policy. (There are too many to link to, just google search Dick Cheney Energy Policy controversy.)
Cheney keeps getting sued over it and in January the Supreme Court upheld the idea that he didn't have to release the records. Anthony Scalia, Supreme Court Justice was apparently playing golf with Cheney A WEEK before he ruled on the case. Bad enough, apparently he then did the same thing with another guy, a Kansas Law School Dean.
Scalia was also one of two justices, Clarence Thomas being the other, who had family members who directly benefitted from W stealing the election. Impeachment proceedings should be well on their way. But they're not, and they surely won't be for some time. Are there any non-criminals in government right now?
I know this story isn't exactly brand new but I just came across it and it too falls under the "Why the hell isn't this on the front page of every newspaper in America" column.
Dick Cheney has refused for a couple of years now to so much as release a list of people he met with in creating the W administration's energy policy. It is a well known secret that most of the people his Lord Voldemort talked to were multinational energy corporations who many groups have accused of literally writing the energy policy. (There are too many to link to, just google search Dick Cheney Energy Policy controversy.)
Cheney keeps getting sued over it and in January the Supreme Court upheld the idea that he didn't have to release the records. Anthony Scalia, Supreme Court Justice was apparently playing golf with Cheney A WEEK before he ruled on the case. Bad enough, apparently he then did the same thing with another guy, a Kansas Law School Dean.
Scalia was also one of two justices, Clarence Thomas being the other, who had family members who directly benefitted from W stealing the election. Impeachment proceedings should be well on their way. But they're not, and they surely won't be for some time. Are there any non-criminals in government right now?
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